Tomorrow is the last day of school!!! I have made five double batches of brownies, with frosting, and four double batches of chocolate chip cookies. Oh, but one of the brownie batches was for my son Chris to take to one of the classes he's been teaching. I have forgotten to collect ice, so will have to buy some, but I have cups and napkins and lemonade. They will eat, and they will go home, and I will be left alone to do my work.

AND eight of my old friends from school, who have connected mostly through Facebook, are getting together at my house Monday afternoon! I have not stayed in touch with any them until FB, although I think some of them have stayed connected over the years. I was best friends with one of them in 4th grade, another in 5th, two more in 6th, one in 7th, one in 8th, knew one since early childhood, and the other was an amiable acquaintance in high school. I was so proud when they included me in our first gathering in December, and when they accepted the name for our group that I suggested, the Slipper Sisters. That was because someone said we had to wear slippers to the gathering, so no one would dress up. Funny how all my insecurities are still right there after all these years, so I just know they wouldn't miss me if I didn't show up. But this time it's at MY HOUSE. Now I'm all stressed about having my house spotless and beautiful, but it seriously already is beautiful, and with enough people there, they won't be able to tell if it's spotless or not! Plus, they're all around my age, so I'm sure details are starting to fade for them, too. And some of them are fatter than I am!

I love Facebook! Even if we never get together again in person, we can stay in touch as much as we choose.

My wife's last day of school is tomorrow (Friday 5 June) but her last full day of school was actually before Memorial Day. She's out on FMLA / sick leave because the environment has become so toxic she was having panic & anxiety attacks about going to work. They've put a number of "misplaced kids" in her class (a high functioning autism cluster, but the kids have had emotional or violence problems). THAT part is okay, she can handle that. But when she tries to keep a kid in the "self contained" cluster rather than going out to a mainstream class (as they do on occasion), she'll get in trouble for that. Never mind that the straw that broke the camel's back was a kid who'd had nine violent outbursts (some physical against her or other students), none of which were addressed by the administration, so she was trying to keep him in the cluster to minimize the impact. She gets in trouble for him missing math class. We believe had she let him go to math class and he had an outburst, she'd be in trouble for that. A no win scenario for her.

She'll be given direction from her district supervisors, which are directly countermanded by her principal. He seems to be a "test scores are more important than actually educating children" type. Don't get me wrong, I think testing is a valuable tool, but not at the expense of children actually being educated. In any case, you can't serve two masters.

We have a class like that here, but it only has six students and three aides, and they're only up to 5th grade. It is SO SAD to see these kids who already have such serious emotional issues at this age, and it's so hard to decide what is best for each one. A couple of them have been really violent at times, to where they have to quickly get the other kids out of the room, so it's dangerous to send them to mainstream classes, yet they're able to do the mainstream work. Some parents want their kids to have as normal a school curriculum as possible, but it's hard to judge exactly what is possible.

I hope Sandee gets some good rest and relaxation over the summer, and that administrators get together and figure something out. The teacher's hands are pretty much tied, and it's got to be really tough to get different instructions.

She won't be going back to this school next year. There was also a problem with an adult aide (11 kids, grades 7-9, 3 adult aides, plus some peer tutors) and she just feels that she can't continue to work with this principal or aides. The kids she can handle if allowed to do her job.

Oh, and an update on Sandee's stuff. She's been worried about whether she could get a job elsewhere, she's been applying all over. I've been telling her that with her experience, 15 years in special ed stuff, she won't have a problem, but she's not happy unless she's having anxiety attacks, I think.

In any case, last Friday was the last day of school. Monday she had an interview at a school in a neighboring district, Tuesday she was offered the job, Wednesday she cleared her stuff out her old classroom, and today she moved it to the new school.

My son Chris has an interview Monday for a middle school history position. He ultimately wants high school, but at this point he will take whatever he can get. And he might decide he likes middle school once he tries it.

It must be the time for finding jobs, because the place in Charleston offered one to my husband this week! He starts next Friday! And you can bet the house hunting just ramped up. I've been working with a realtor for about a week, she's showing me more houses tomorrow.

That's been one of the surprising things to me, looking at new houses. We currently have a 2 car garage, with 3 bedrooms, but we're looking for a house with 4 bedrooms this time around, and every one has a fireplace (which we don't care about) but either no garage, or a 1 car garage! I didn't realize how much we love our garage!

One house we looked at last week was great on paper, but then when I visited it, well, it's been shot down because of one thing. There is no bathtub in the entire house! 2 1/2 bath, but all are shower stalls, and my kid won't take a shower! And we are going to have to move in quickly, no time to rip it out & put in a tub. So, yeah, it's amazing what little things you find become dealbreakers. It had the absolute perfect kitchen too.

The house I grew up in didn't have a shower, only a bathtub (and only one bathroom, not unusual for a house built in 1936). My dad had made a shower area outside the back porch, but it was completely outside, so you had to wear a swimsuit, which I rarely wanted to do. Our first house when we got married was the same situation. So I like my baths, although a shower is nice in the summertime. I can't imagine making kids take only showers and expecting them to get clean, though, and I can see how a shower could totally freak some kids out. So good luck on the bathtub thing!

I drove to our church girls camp yesterday and back last night. No big deal, except that since my brain still doesn't know how to separate my left eye from my right, I can't see street signs with my left contact in, and since I was in unfamiliar territory in the near-darkness, I pulled the left one out while I was driving. I was afraid I'd have to pull over and mess with it, but nope, it came right out. On the other hand, I never could find the right one to pull it out last night before I went to bed, nor this morning. I don't know if it's in there or not. My eye was really dry and irritated this morning, but that could either be because it's still in there, or because I scratched my eyeball searching for it. There's just not a big enough difference between my normal vision and the +.75 correction in that lens. I think I will probably start wearing only one, and send back all the ones for that eye.

Also, there was some kind of electrical problem down the street when I got home just before dark, and about 45 minutes later the power went off on the whole street. Luckily I had candles, but not nearly as many as I used to have before I got plug-in wax melters. I wasn't scared, even though I was home alone and it was entirely possible that the whole thing was a clever ploy by bad guys to get into my house, but I really would have been kind of freaked out if it had already happened when I got home.

It was off for about two hours. Too hot to sleep upstairs with no fan, so I slept outside until the lights came back on.

We put a bid in on a house, and it's been accepted. Met with the current owners & a structural engineer yesterday. It's on the side of a mountain, wanted to make sure it wasn't likely to slide off it. But everything is OK. Trying to close by the end of the month, so we can get my son into the new school in time. So, yeah, I'm a busy lady right now!